Faith and Water

Welcome to the blog of Rachel G. Hackenberg, a United Church of Christ pastor serving in Lancaster, PA (gracechurchlancaster.org). Check out Rachel's books, Writing to God and Writing to God: Kids' Edition, at paracletepress.com. For workshop and other info, visit rachelhackenberg.com.

Tuesday, December 31, 2013

If you're still landing here on blogspot, I invite you to bookmark my new blog address: faithandwater.com! You might be interested in checking my blog at the start of each week for "Monday Muse," a new serious with worship ideas and lectionary reflections.

Thursday, August 15, 2013

If you're still landing here to connect to my new & improved blog and website, you may not have seen yet the lively discussions that have been generated by my recent post, "Rahab as a Model for Ministry." My post takes issue with Mark Love's "Eleven Things You Might Not Understand About Your Minister." An excerpt of my remarks:

Here's what ministers, especially burning-out ministers, can learn from Rahab:SELF-CARE. Rahab survived! She survived a perilous vocation and survived the invasion & destruction of her city, which means that Rahab did not neglect safety and self-care. Though she depended on clients for income, she depended upon herself to care for her spirit and for her body in order to thrive, not merely survive. Rahab's ability to stay alive in body & spirit was fundamental to her availability and cunning to aid the Israelite spies.Likewise pastors cannot be unempowered in caring for ourselves nor disheartened from nurturing our spirits for this work that can be so taxing. Though we struggle at times when it seems that congregants are determined to undermine our work, though we walk a fine line between serving parishioners without reservation while knowing that we depend upon those same parishioners for our income, nevertheless we cannot wait for congregants to "understand" us before we begin to care for ourselves. Our ability to stay alive -- physically, emotionally, spiritually -- is necessary to our availability for ministry.

Sunday, February 17, 2013

I'm blogging here now -- still "Faith and Water," but with a dot-com instead of a blogspot-dot-com. And yes, I'm writing & posting daily prayers for Lent on my blog this year as usual. Come read! Come write!